


Wolf Black

by write_light



Series: Wolf Black [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Evil King, Huntsman - Freeform, M/M, Magic, Melodrama, True Love, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-07
Updated: 2015-02-07
Packaged: 2018-03-10 22:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3306461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_light/pseuds/write_light
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sterek AU with an Evil King and his Loyal Huntsman, men and wolves, loss and pain, mercy and trust, and one very enigmatic Mirror on the wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolf Black

**Author's Note:**

> It's an old story, with a twist.  Snow White minus Snow White.  Or, as a friend insists, "you wrote Beauty and the Beast but inside out or something". XD Enjoy! Also at [FMF](http://fullmoon-ficlet.livejournal.com/284291.html) | [DW](http://write-light.dreamwidth.org/484707.html) or [LJ](http://write-light.livejournal.com/552980.html)

The throne beneath him was ice cold, like the room it loomed over, like the heart that beat in his chest.

"What _are_ you asking me for?" he burst out, and the captured spy shivered three times, chilled by the floor, the king's voice, and the fate laid before him.

"For mercy, your highness-"

The king slid from his throne and moved swiftly toward the prisoner, dropping to one knee beside him.

"In _this court_?" the king whispered over him. "In MY COURT?"

"Sire-" said the king's huntsman, still gripping the spy by the neck. He could snap it if ordered to.

The king hesitated at this, a look of regret crossing his face.

"Put him with the others. Bring me proof."

The spy gave no further sign of his fear, no desperate cry, and that more than anything angered the king. The ones that pleaded, that fell to their knees and cried out to him were his favorite. They at least needed him.

"Are there others?" the king asked impatiently.

"No, sire," said the huntsman, his eyes lowered to avoid meeting the king's.

"Then go. And be back soon. Your absence weighs on me."

The huntsman turned, dragging the spy with him, and they were gone from the castle within the hour, heading far to the north, far from the kingdom – so far in fact that the spy began to show real fear.

"Where are you taking me?"

The huntsman said nothing the entire day but walked tirelessly beside the spy until they had crossed the northern river and entered the wild mountains.

"Kill me here!" shouted the spy, about to be abandoned in a land ruled, it was said, by terrifying creatures.

"Go further on, upward and in. Never return to our land or to yours."

With that, the huntsman strode away to the south, to his king. When the mountains were far behind and the trees again tight overhead, he changed into a wolf, tore out the throat of the largest buck he could find, and devoured all but its heart.

***

In the castle's upper floors, where only King Stiles was allowed, even his most trusted servants still knocked softly and rarely. Disturbing the king was to risk injury; discovering his secrets meant death. Or so the rumors spread through the lower halls.

Stiles turned the heavy key to lock the door behind him, and the smaller key in the smaller lock of the second door. It was quite dark, this room inside a room, but it held an immeasurable treasure.

Stiles looked at the mirror, as he had many times, and saw him again – the Evil King, some called him – staring back from its dark depths. As he moved, so did the Evil King, and as he frowned, so did the Evil King, and it terrified him.

When the fear subsided, he spoke to the mirror:

          Magic mirror on the wall,  
          Who is for me – for me beyond all?

Now this mirror, aside from being magical, not an unusual quality of mirrors in the kingdoms, was able to do something unique. It was no mere spy or tattletale – it knew things. It knew secrets about you at first glance, and it would tell you all you wanted to know, so long as you asked about love.

No one loved King Stiles, clearly, he concluded because the mirror told him nothing of his true love's name or face. Each time he asked the question, the mirror was ever silent, or spoke in riddles, and he left without hope, sinking deeper into the depression that now gripped his entire realm.

But that day it said...

          _You know your own heart, oh king of this land,  
          So open it wide and take the wolf’s hand. _

"You speak only to insult me? Riddles or silence, is that all you have today? You are cursed, I'm sure of it, no matter what mother said."

The mirror now reflected a hurt that couldn't be hidden but it said nothing more in the quiet candlelight.

"I know my own heart well enough, thank you. I do not take the hand of a wolf or any other animal. Who can love a wolf that seeks only to eat you? The wolves are gone, driven away, so once again, you have _nothing_ for me."

He blew out the candles, all of them at once. The mirror, as was its way, reflected darkness.

***

"Where is my huntsman?" the king roared as he thundered down the stairs.

He was rarely in a good mood, and never after being upstairs in his secret rooms.

"He returns now!" said a fortunate gate guard just off shift. "Within moments, sire. He was sighted-"

"Good enough," said Stiles and strode toward the main hall, his back less knotted, his shoulders relaxing, his pulse slowing.

Derek's hands were covered in the red-brown of dried blood when he entered the hall, spy blood it seemed. The buck’s heart, wrapped in a stained cloth, tumbled from his hands into those of the king. In truth, Stiles had nothing planned for this heart – not to feed his hounds or anyone else. But it was an old tradition – a king's huntsman slayed those who threatened the kingdom and deserved death, and brought back their hearts as proof.

Proof was no longer needed, as Stiles never doubted him and Derek gave him no reason to. The hearts were the hearts of his animal prey, but Derek never shared that. Wolves were only the untamed monsters of the north, not the king's closest man.

Stiles placed the heart in the roaring fire that heated the hall and took hold of Derek's bloody hands.

"We'll wash, and eat," he said.

"I've eaten, sire."

"And what have you eaten? A handful of berries?" His wry smile now was meant to coax Derek. "Certainly not a proper dinner after a day's journey."

He hadn't let go of Derek's hands, and to this, and the washing up, and the dinner they shared there were plenty of witnesses who could talk of little else that night but how their king was, every so often, not evil.

***

Stiles licked his tongue around his lips to catch all the cream from the dessert, and Derek suppressed a smile. The man he knew, had known for years, was back again. And yet this King Stiles would disappear and the Evil King would return, as he always did. Derek drew out these moments over dinner for as long as he could, and tonight, as long as he dared. The king's unrestrained laugh, full-bodied and mouth open wide – that alone was worth the risk.

Derek finally took his leave from their table and returned hastily to his room just as the moon was rising. His small chamber was only sparely decorated, at his order, and had one tall window of leaded glass, through which the full moon seemed to scatter into jewels in the sky.

He took his mother's amulet from the box under his bed. With care, he unwrapped the small disk and held it tightly in his hands as his claws grew longer and longer. He could control the wolf in him, but only just; the fresh kill and the heavy dinner on top of it had calmed the beast somewhat this time. He repeated the words his mother had taught him, knowing they would keep him human, and safe, for another day.

So many days had passed since the fire took her, since it took all of them and left him an orphan at the castle gates, arrested for theft and thrown at the king's feet. Stiles’ father agreed to employ the boy in the castle in whatever role he was suited for, but Derek knew how to hunt better than anyone in the castle – and the young prince was impressed. Derek had dared say and do many things in those early days of chases round the castle and nighttime escapes into the forest. That was before he knew how one must behave in the presence of royalty. That was before he'd learned control, and caution; before he'd gone too far.

***

In his private chambers, Stiles heard the mirror's words again in his mind. None of its cryptic phrases made sense to him. To others perhaps who learned the name of their soul mate, or the location of that perfect person – these lucky ones left the castle in haste to be with their true love, dropping wealth uncountable in the king's coffers, the price of one question to that mirror.

"So where is your loyalty to me? Have I misused you? Is this a punishment you visit on me for selling your services?"

The mirror was silent; it responded only to a sincere heart, and so Stiles began again:

          Magic mirror on the wall,  
          Who is for me – for me beyond all?

And from the glass itself, it seemed, came a voice like cut crystal:

          _The love of your life is hidden still  
          Awaiting an order from you – to kill_

"You mock me! You cannot say that my true love awaits my order and yet is still hidden. Nothing is hidden from you! You are a _magic mirror_."

He threw his cup at the silent glass, but it merely bounced off.

***

At the next judgment, four criminals stood accused of questioning the king. The room was as cold as before, despite the summer outside. The king himself seemed to draw the warmth out of it as he glared at the men and women before his throne.

One conspirator dared to look up at him, and was struck on the head for it.

"No need for words," King Stiles said, appearing bored. "Take them away. Do what you must. Bring me their hearts and we'll feast tonight."

At this, Derek raised his eyes to the king as well, and looked for a sign that he was not in earnest. Stiles had never eaten the hearts of the wild creatures Derek killed to deceive him; Derek swore he would not let it happen. He listened to the king's heartbeat and breathing, but he could not be sure. He would need to kill many times that night.

Stiles had seen the look of concern on Derek's face. Concern for _him_. He saw how far he'd gone, and retreated as far as he could, publicly.

"No, no feast. Leave them alone out there. The forest will devour them."

Derek lead the group out of the castle, tied hand to hand and waist to waist, and took them far beyond the forest. When they finally stopped, the conspirators fell down in exhaustion and cowered there.

"Go north to where the mountains start, and do not return, ever. I can do no more than this."

"Huntsman, you see our cause is just!"

"I see four hearts that my king no longer demands. Take your cause with you and walk north and forget your past for now."

***

Stiles watched from the high wall, looking out toward the northern forest for signs of Derek's return. His own parents had ventured there once; his father had died there. His mother, without her true love, had faded from the world. She sat often in front of the mirror as Stiles now did, in a small chair unfit for a queen, looking to the mirror for answers. It had none, as it had none for Stiles.

Before she died, the queen took Stiles to see the mirror for the first time, to learn the source of their wealth and power. It stood so tall over him then, a towering presence in that tiny room, glinting with silver and polished curls of wood along the frame, like teeth. It was inhuman looking, the creation of some other race, he'd imagined.

"It will answer you, too," she promised, "when the time is right. It knows who loves you most deeply and whom you love most. Trust it with all your heart."

Stiles' heart, though, was not listening to the mirror but to the clop of horse hooves in the distance, watching a single dark rider emerge from the line of towering trees. His heart remembered those trees and the things that lived in that forest – the dark beast most of all – and so was thrilled to see Derek return alive once more.

As a young prince, Stiles had followed Derek out of the castle one night, curious for adventure, curious to see what Derek would do at night, out of doors on his own. There was a wide and dangerous world that no prince of the kingdom could see without guards around him and a coach to carry him.

On that warm night, a breeze from the north brought fresh forest smells, erasing the odors of the castle and the streets around it. Derek had disappeared ahead of him in the night, but as the moon rose wide and cream-colored, Stiles thought he could see a black figure in the distance, creeping on the ground toward the trees.

He ran to catch up and to avoid being seen by palace guards, but when he came to the forest, he was the only person there, and nearly out of breath. He could see only the black and white shapes of the trees and utter darkness beyond their trunks. He stared into that darkness for so long, he imagined he saw embers and fairy lights moving.

The growl came low and long. It was not imagination now, but real darkness coming for him, black on black, a wolf crashing out of the brush and leaping. Stiles fled.

The wolf was behind him for a long way, snarling and barking its hunger at him. Then it stopped, but Stiles kept running. When he turned to look back, there was only the night and the fields and the far-off forest – and the black wolf in his memory.

***

It was a sight to see – the King himself tearing down the stone steps at top speed as if he were a child again.

At the gate, he skidded to a stop and composed himself while the guards and courtiers bowed deeply so as not to appear curious.

"Derek!" he said to his returned huntsman, the very second he entered.

"It's done, sire," Derek said, wearily.

"Done, yes of course it's done. And you're back,” he added eagerly.

"Your majesty, may I-" Derek asked, looking at the many people watching this exchange.

"Of course. Clean up. We'll talk later."

"A word now, if I might?" Derek persisted, raising his eyebrows as if they explained his motives.

To Stiles, not at all strangely, these dark brows did speak their own heavy language and he enjoyed decoding it.

"In the great hall. Yes. Come."

***

"Your mercy was a most welcome change, Sire," Derek began, when they were alone.

"Mercy? When have I shown that?"

"With the people who spoke against you – the ones I just dispatched?"

"They are gone?"

"They will not trouble you again. But they are not alone in those thoughts of change."

"Am I to believe my people hate me?"

"They fear you," Derek said quickly, determined to get it out, “and that is worse.”

The silence that followed was awful, for both of them, and it lasted for days.

***

Derek ate alone that week, and Stiles ate in front of his mirror, determined to bring forth the answer he sought, but no ideas came to him. He thought only of Derek in his tiny room and wished to share their meals again. He slept alone, as always, in his large bed. No amount of fire could keep the empty rooms warm enough.

At the first cock-crow of the new week, Stiles awoke with a start and went up and up the winding stairs to the mirror, stumbling through the dark without even a lamp or candle flame to guide him. The room was as black as the night outside and he could feel nothing in front of his outstretched hands. He wondered for one terrifying moment if he would pass through the mirror and vanish, then he felt glass, smooth and lifeless, and at the edge, the points of the carved frame, the mirror's fangs.

He leaned on the mirror with both hands but it did not move. Massive, and still seeming to tower over him even in adulthood, it stretched out into the darkness of the room, endless.

"I will ask you again," he began, trying to sound contrite but ending up threatening.

          Magic mirror on the wall,  
          Who is for me – for me beyond all?

He paused, and slowly laid his forehead against the glass, where its cold burned into him. The voice seemed to be in his head now.

          _Your true love's cloaked in blackest night_  
          _Charmed to keep him from your sight_  
_Till your fear no longer enthralls_  
_And yet - he walks these very halls_.

In that one answer, there were so many riches. Stiles stood motionless and half-naked against the glass, his head aching in the early morning, his hands tight on the frame, near to drawing blood against the sharp points pressing into his palms. He was chuckling, he finally realized, as he repeated the mirror's words over and over. He was crying too, warm tears running down his cheeks to tickle his nose and lips.

"You answered me," Stiles said, his voice shaking.

***

The people he ruled would not recognize this king – shirtless, shivering, caught between laughs and sobs.

"You knew! I knew you knew. I have a true love. I have a- - a _he_? He. Him. Mirror, you cursed thing, what is this joke? There is no man in these halls with me. I am alone."

A knock came from far off, through the doors. A strong knock to make it that far, and a brave knock to even consider bothering the king – who would dare? Stiles composed himself and unlocked the mirror room door with the small key. The day was well under way, judging from the blinding stream of sun that hit him as he walked out.

The knocking continued, patiently, resting between sets so as not to appear impertinent.

"I cannot send my huntsman away again and again to kill whoever is knocking on my door!" the king yelled loudly.

The knocking ceased, and that was worse. He ran to the door and turned the heavy key over quickly, sliding the bar aside and flinging it open to see Derek's fist raised to knock one more time.

Derek was not happy.

"Sire, I apologize-"

"No, what-" he said, instantly forgiving.

"I know your orders regarding the top floor, and-"

"Derek. What?" he asked, demanding the truth.

"My uncle has written and asked me to join him."

"So go," he said too quickly, backing away from the hurt that was coming.

"He is not here in the kingdom. He lives far away."

"This uncle-"

"Peter."

"Does he need you?"

"He says he is ill."

"You've been my huntsman since you turned 15, and my friend long before that."

Derek's eyes fell to somewhere near the floor to hear that word "friend" used.

"And since, as well," Stiles added quickly, tilting his head down to catch Derek's eyes.

He succeeded and his gaze pulled Derek's back up.

"I can't lose you."

"I would only go if-"

"Then no. Send word that you have a place here and cannot leave."

"He is my only living relative, sire," Derek pleaded.

"And he abandoned you when your family died? Where was he then, when my parents took you in?"

"He- he was occupied with war."

"Indeed. Should I fear him? I don't fear your uncle or his armies."

"You fear the forest," Derek lashed out and Stiles' face darkened. "You have since that night you saw a wolf out there. You know nothing of the wolves beyond the trees."

"I know they killed my father! And my mother as part of that," he yelled back, ragged from lack of sleep.

"That – isn't true. It can't be. They are-"

"What are they? Noble? Proud creatures of the forest kingdom? Or monsters of the northern mountains as we know with our own eyes?

"My mother said they have their own kingdom. That they ruled the north and still do," Derek said, recalling the tales she told him as he lay with his head on her lap and his brothers and sisters around him. "These wolves could walk among men, she said. And might yet."

Derek was dangerously close to something he could not take back or explain away; he would have to leave now, one way or the other. And Stiles was dangerously close to _him_. They were furious and afraid and unable to speak but they didn't dare move.

"You won't be alone forever," Derek said finally.

"I will."

Stiles' eyes were dark, much darker than the warm brown eyes Derek felt upon him every day. The words were final, like death.

***

The doors closed between them as Stiles retreated to the mirror, certain that Derek was leaving the castle. He slammed both the doors, his breath hard and sharp, almost a bark.

"He's leaving. He feels nothing, clearly. Was it _him_?" he screamed at the mirror.

The same silence, louder now. He didn't dare ask again.

"He 'walks these halls' - that was…that was clever. That was trickery worthy of a master spy. He's been walking these halls for years."

He could see his reflection in the mirror now. Pale light seeped in around the smaller door, ajar just an inch where it had rebounded after he swung it closed so brutally.

'Waiting for my order to kill'? Isn't that what you said, Mirror? He does nothing else but wait for my cruelty. I've made him take out my vengeance on people for so long and still he stands there silently while I make them hate me. And hate him. Derek-"

The face in the mirror twisted, distorting painfully, but not by the mirror's magic – it was Stiles' own face as he realized what he'd become and what he was losing that day.

***

Derek put on the clothes his uncle sent him, fine clothes he'd never had as a huntsman. He turned the talisman over and over in his hands, the last of his items to be packed. The triskele of his family was his key to staying human, he knew, and he would at least do that for Stiles. He would not be a wolf here, even if his uncle called him north to fight with them. He could not, around Stiles, who feared wolves as much as he feared life alone, who had lost everything to the wolves.

Derek repeated the three words over and over in his mind, under his breath, and out loud, but they were not working as they had before; the blackness of the wolf was taking over. He thought instead of his king, his protector, his friend at one time but surely no more.

At the top of the castle tower, Stiles stood alone, not able to touch the mirror, not able to move from it. His head hung down, eyes reddened and swollen, and he said one name: _Derek_.

And then he demanded, burning with the pain of abandonment he thought he'd extinguished:

          Magic mirror on the wall,

It reverberated in the tiny room, he'd said it so loud. He hesitated, wondering if he could run out of chances to even ask the question. He gave up the rest of his plea in a tiny voice, almost inaudible.

          Who is for me – for me beyond all?

***

The mirror replied quickly but it kept to its riddles.

          _You are for you, my fairest king.  
          The song of yourself is the truest you'll sing. _

"Wha-? What new torments do you have for me now? Am I to fall in love with myself? Then I would be truly alone."

He laughed at the absurdity of his life, even as the sobs echoed in breathing. But then the mirror spoke again, its voice growing warmer, if such a thing were even possible.

          _To break the spell  
          You must love well. _

Stiles, King of a wide realm and more powerful than any other ruler around him, had no power.

"I cannot love well, surely you of all mirrors must know that. You've denied me love all this time, only to show me the love you think is truest is a man, my friend since childhood, who is walking away?"

There was no answer. He started again.

          Magic mirror-

Then he gave up hoping, and thought instead.

"He was never hidden or under a spell. He – he's Derek. I know him front to back. Not a magic bone in his body."

The hazy dark held just as much light as his thoughts did, and as the day grew brighter, so did the room for its part, but his thoughts did not clear. His hunger grew too, and his thirst, but still, no one came. He had trained them well and now he was truly isolated.

"If I'm to be a good king,…" he started to say, realizing that he must figure this out, whatever “loving well” meant. He had to know what was dancing around the edges of his mind before Derek left forever.

He looked at the mirror, studying it. It was exquisitely odd. Too large to be useful, too ugly to display, his mother had said. The frame looked like the jaws of a wolf, wide open and lined with teeth, like the wolf that had run at him all those years ago when he was only trying to join Derek for a midnight adventure. As these disjointed thoughts found a hold and coalesced in his mind, he became scared, truly scared, by what they told him.

"You weren't lying," Stiles said finally, as if to apologize to the mirror, but it only waited. "'Take the wolf's hand,' you told me - my soul and heart, my soul and heart, what is wrong with me? My only friend and I sent him off. My wolf. My black wolf. Come back."

The mirror trembled and the room brightened, but through his tears, it seemed as if the mirror murmured and everything glowed.

"Stiles."

"Mirror?"

He rubbed his eyes and saw what the mirror revealed – Derek, in fine clothes, with a flash of color in his eyes.

"This is cruel, to show me now my one true love when I am least worthy of him. Take this image away and show me myself alone. That much is truth."

"Stiles," said the Derek in the mirror, silhouetted against the light of the narrow doorframe.

"I could love you, you know, but go if you must. I have asked too much of you."

"I'm leaving tonight," said the mirror’s Derek again.

Unable to endure the mirror's tormenting visions any longer, Stiles turned from them and collided with Derek, his Derek, black beard and fierce jaw, arms wide to stop him.

"Come with me," Derek said as he enfolded Stiles.

 

END

 

******

 

 

 

 

_CODA_

_What? That's the end of it?_

_-No of course that's not the end of it. Love stories don't end._

_Well then tell me the rest!_

_-On another night, and another, until you get tired of it._

_Where is Derek?_

_-On a mission, you know that._

_Where is he right now? Is he safe?_

_-He has the King with him, so I think they'll do fine. Now you go off to sleep. See, the wolfpup has fallen asleep already. He'll keep you warm._

 


End file.
